Hot coals and $995

I read this news report the other day that said 21 people burned themselves while walking across a bed of hot coals at a Tony Robbins seminar. They had paid somewhere between $995 and $2,595 for the experience. You cannot make this stuff up.

That’s a lot of money, I thought. I wonder what else they could have done with their contribution to the world of psychiatry and podiatry? This sort of thing demands a study of some sort. Here’s what I found.

The $995 will get you approximately seven pairs of Michael Jordan basketball shoes which, if given to the right kid, might be turned into a college scholarship or render him a victim of crime via theft as he tries to make it home one night after practice wearing his new shoes.

The $995 could also get a membership in a local country club somewhere in rural Georgia, (exceptions noted) where you can hang out at the pool, drink beer, eat chicken fingers, greasy hamburgers and salty fries, put on 20 pounds, harden your arteries and bring on depression all in one exciting summer of fun in the sun.

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You could play close to eight rounds of golf over at Reynolds Plantation for $995, and on just one of those trips, drinking beer all day while riding around in a cart gambling and losing money you don’t have, drive home wasted, receive a DUI, spend the night in jail and squander your one phone call trying and explain to your wife it was the guys’ fault. They told too many golf stories at the clubhouse.

The $995 would pay your termite control invoices for many years, saving your home and leaving you a nest egg for those retirement days where you can relax and drink beer (yeah right). You could have unlimited cable and sit around drinking beer and watching 700 channels of pure garbage for six years on $995, thereby exposing yourself to all manner of charlatans, shysters, swindlers and religious fanatics willing to take your money for their causes. One of them might even be able to heal your golf addiction.

Years of Braves’ tickets can be had for $995 and you can make the trek to Turner Field, enjoy a game while drinking too much beer with the one hot dog because two is just one too many, get a DUI on the way -- well you know the rest.

You could buy a nice big dog for $995 and watch as he/she runs out in the road and bites your golfing partner, who, along with you, is trying to walk off the pounds gained drinking beer, eating chicken fingers and fries at the country club over the summer, thereby rendering you liable in a potential lawsuit you can’t afford because you spent too much money on the beer you drank with him.

But pay $995 to walk across hot coals? Why would you want to do that? Put that money in a nice savings account and watch it grow at 0 percent a year. Now that will make your hair stand on end.

Is it any wonder most of us are in therapy? Oh, $995 will get you several sessions with someone who’s dying to hear about your weight, drinking, and wife problem (think chicken fingers, imbibing, and depression), but he/she probably has more issues than you, with the exception of finances of course, you spent all your money on beer.

Sonny Harmon is an educator at Georgia Military College. Visit his blog at http://sharmon09.blogspot.com.